Candidates Tournament Round 10

The race for the finish line is underway at the London Candidates Tournament! In round 10, Vladimir Kramnik scored his second win of the tournament by beating his compatriot Alexander Grischuk with the black pieces in a Berlin endgame. Kramnik popularised the Berlin when he used it successfully against Kasparov in their 2000 world championship match, and he used it to good effect again today. Grischuk is known for his ability to play good moves quickly in time-trouble, but even he can make mistakes and 30.Bxd4 was a miscalculation which cost the game.

Vladimir Kramnik won his second game of the tournament to stay in contention

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Lev Aronian faced Vassily Ivanchuk and today's random opening from Chucky was the Budapest Gambit. "I just wanted to play it, so I played it" he answered, less than helpfully to an enquiry in the press conference after the game.

It wasn't the unusual choice of opening that did for Ivanchuk though, it was his familiar foe: the clock. Yet again, he ran very short of time and blundered in an otherwise reasonable position. A shocking tournament for the Ukrainian, and Aronian was the latest beneficiary of his largesse.

Lev Aronian ponders his next move while Magnus Carlsen looks on

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.Aronian's win put him temporarily back at the top of the standings, but meanwhile Magnus Carlsen was nursing a long-term advantage against Boris Gelfand deep into a tricky endgame. Eventually, Carlsen established connected passed pawns that Gelfand was unable to stop, and it was another vital win for the Norwegian, keeping him in the tournament lead.

Magnus Carlsen kept ahead of the pack with another win

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The other game of the day was a short draw between Teimour Radjabov and Peter Svidler. After a disastrous few rounds Radjabov was clearly content to settle for damage limitation, his only ambition being to stop the rot.

Teimour Radjabov has had a disappointing tournament

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The standings after 10 rounds

Name

Fed

Elo

Pts

Magnus Carlsen

NOR

2872

7

Levon Aronian

ARM

2809

6½

Vladimir Kramnik

RUS

2810

6

Peter Svidler

RUS

2747

4½

Alexander Grischuk

RUS

2764

4½

Boris Gelfand

ISR

2740

4½

Vassily Ivanchuk

UKR

2757

3½

Teimour Radjabov

AZE

2793

3½

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The 2013 Candidates Tournament runs from 14 March - 2 April in London, with the winner earning the right to challenge current world champion Vishy Anand for the title.

The tournament is an 8-player double round-robin event and the venue is The IET at 2 Savoy Place on the banks of the river Thames. The total prize fund is €510,000 (approx 665,000 USD).

All rounds start at 14:00 GMT, and the time control is 2 hours for 40 moves, then an extra hour added for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes more with a 30 second increment to finish.

@Joel_Hernendez My apologies I misremembered the number it was 9 years.Kasparov holds the record for most consecutive professional tournament victories, placing first or equal first in 15 individual tournaments from 1981 to 1990.[citation needed]The streak was broken byVasily IvanchukatLinares1991, where Kasparov placed 2nd, half a point behind him. The details of this record winning streak follow:[18]

To check on whether a fix was in on the Grischuck match yesterday or any of the other matches for that matter, you'll have to check the betting lines to verify it. This is done regularly in the UK; there were a couple of in tennis a couple of years ago when Davydenko allegedly threw a match (he retired to illness during the match) after some large amounts of $$ we placed on his opponent (to win). In that case, Davydenko was heavily favored to win. Now this is what needs to be done; anytime money is on the line you can rest assured that a fix could be in.

Fischer ,even at his peak, would have no chance today against Carlsen. He ran away from Karpov and Kasparov. His profound psychiatric problems effectively ended his career. He visciously turned on all those who had altruistically helped him growing up in Brooklyn. He was a truly sad , pathetic, disturbed man.

@AdamCormierGarry Kasparov DID NOT have a streak of 13 consecutive years winning every major tournament he entered. Let's not start blowing achievements out of proportion now and spreading false information.

Fischer's match performance was very impressive, however Garry Kasparov had a streak of winning every major tournament he entered for 9 years! Fischer might have been better at matches for the limitied data pool we have on him, but Kasparov is still clearly the best until Carlsen has a 9+ year streak of tournament victories.

I don't know if there is a game fixing. I want to believe there is not. But it was Magnus Garlsen who selected this type of canditate's event. After all Bobby Fischer was right (as near always in chess). The challenger for the WC must be decided from matches detween the canditates. The same happens in all sports, team or individual, speaking for the WC title.

Magnus did not need to risk anything against kramnik and Aronian. That is part of his plan to secure the challenger post. He can just draw them but will beat most of the rest, enough to win this tourney. I would not have changed this plan, if I were in his shoes. Why even mention Fischer? He didn't have the booked up and tech and theory savvy opponents that Magnus has been dominating in the last few years.

Aronian = Armenian Jew... Armenian are probably closer ethnically to Iranian Kurds than they are to Eastern Europeans. Russians don't love Armenians and treat them even worse.

Ivanchuk/Grichuk = Ukrainian... these arent the Soviet days and unless Levon promised them his wife, they have a national reputation to salvage.

Svidler/Gelfand = Russian Jews... no love lost between Russians and their Jewish population. I wonder who got the coin toss for free games on this duo.

Kramnik = Russian... the only trully ethnic Russian. Maybe his Jewish friends will forget the anti-semitic taunts they received all their lives.

To suggest that a bunch societ KGB GMs went to a strip bar in London and decided to throw matches to an Armenian Jew between vodka blow jobs from a greek stripper is ludicrous.

If Carlsen was a little more daring against Kramnik and Aronian he may have already secured the championship, but he is scared of them and played safe... this ain't no Bobby Fischer phenom... is he the best in the world, yes, is he a dominant champion, not yet.

I don't think 'Chucky' is taking this competition too seriously, and that's his prerogative. It's fun seeing the unusual lines he chooses, though. Anyway, Carlsen isn't exactly "running away" with the tournament, as his rating seemed to suggest he might. He's doing well, though, and will probably face Anand. As for Gelfand, this is likely his last try for the WCC. He'll probably be glad to get out of the 'chess rat-race'. When asked what his plans were for after the tournament, Boris told a reporter " I reckon I'll settle down in some quiet place. Get me a little business...a hardware or grocery store, and spend the better part of my time readin' comic strips and adventure stories."

"Regarding fixing, this tournament format seems to favor Carlsen, not the "Russians". The "genius" Carlsen could only beat the outsiders, but got nothing with white against Aronian and Kramnik and suffered with black against Kramnik, so in a match with either of them I'm not sure if he would be as successful as in an indirect race like this."

And how about the genius Aronian or the genius Kramnik? Apparently we all seem to forget Kramnik had a winning line against Aronian (1.4 computer eval) but didn't see it. Once you are ironical towards one, maybe you should try not to be biased and see the same situation for your favourite as well.

The format does in theory favour Carlsen because he is by far the strongest player, but apparently some others will try to do anything they can to stop that, even give up games on time and play unsound openings. The Budapest Gambit was last played at 2700+ level 5 years ago and Ivanchuk plays it against Aronian, Against whom he had previously played the Trompowsky in this tournament, yet another "superGM opening". And against it Aronian was worse, but he at least managed to win on time! A true stroke of genius, being worse in the middlegame against an unsound black opening.

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